DD Form 1423 occupies a particular place in Defense recordkeeping. Its title is DD Form 1423, Contract Data Requirements List (4 data items), August 1996, and it exists to Contract Data Requirements List. What the DD prefix records is an administrative judgment made long before your copy was printed: this transaction was determined to be common to the whole Department rather than peculiar to one service, and so the documentation of it was standardized at Department level.
The practical effect of Department-level issue is interoperability. not stated establishes the requirement across the Defense enterprise; not stated keeps the document current for all of it. No service maintains its own variant, which means a completed record travels between components — service to agency, agency to joint command — and arrives in a format the receiving office already knows how to read.
Current edition: not stated, status not stated. Understand why that date is worth attention here. When the Department reissues a form, the replacement takes effect across every component simultaneously, so an older copy is not merely locally out of date — it is out of date in every office that might receive it.
The sequence printed on the form is the sequence in which a reviewer will read it, and the two should agree. Header data frames every entry below it; the substantive fields depend on that frame; the certification stands at the end because its whole function is to vouch for what came before. Entries made out of sequence commonly contradict entries made earlier.
Before the first entry, compare the date printed on the form face with not stated. This is not bureaucratic fussiness. Editions change field numbering, and a receiving office working from the current layout may look for information where your copy does not put it. On a Department form the exposure is wider than usual: your record may be reviewed by an office in another service entirely, one with no reason to remember what the previous edition looked like.
Leave nothing empty. Where an item genuinely does not apply, N/A is the correct entry, because the record must distinguish between a question that was answered in the negative and a question that was never reached. An empty box carries no information about which happened. Date fields deserve particular care on a Department form, since the reviewer may write dates by a convention different from yours; use the format the form itself specifies.
Understand what the Privacy Act Statement is doing on the page. It exists because collecting personal data from an individual triggers a duty to explain the collection: under what authority, for what purpose, to whom the information may routinely go, and whether you are obliged to answer. That explanation precedes the fields for the obvious reason — afterwards it is merely a notice, beforehand it is a basis for deciding.
What the signature block asks for is an act, not a text. Ink on a printed copy performs that act; a digital signature bound to your credential performs it electronically, CAC-based in most Defense systems. Typing your name performs nothing, since anyone with the file could type the same characters. Enter the date at the same moment: the certification is a statement about a point in time and needs one recorded.
The defects that return forms are the same ones year after year: a superseded edition, required fields left blank, handwriting that fails on reproduction, dates in a convention the form did not ask for, and certification without a signature or without a date. Where a specific field is genuinely unclear, the instructions printed on the form come first and not stated governs where the two do not agree.
Download the form
Formats available: PDF, across 2 pages and about 142 fields. That several formats coexist is a consequence of scale — the Department cannot standardize the software on every desk that needs this form, so it standardizes the document instead.
Two states of the same page circulate, and the reason is worth knowing. In the fillable pdf, the boxes are real fields holding real data; in the printable pdf, the boxes are drawings. Where a record will cross components — as Department records regularly do — the typed version is the safer artifact. Each scan, each forwarding, each reproduction costs handwriting a little legibility, and the office that finally files the record is rarely the office that received it first.
What the form asks for
- 14. Distribution. a. Addressee, line 1 of 3.
- 14.b. Number of Copies. Draft.
- 14.b. Number of Final copies: regular.
- Number of Final copies: reproducible.
- 14. Distribution. a. Addressee, line 2.
- 14.b. Copies. Draft.
- 14.b. Final copies: regular.
- Final copies: reproducible.
- 14.a. Addressee, line 3.
- 14.b. Copies. Draft.
- 14.b. Final copies: regular.
- Final copies: reproducible.
- 14.b. Number of Copies. Draft.
- 14. Distribution. a. Addressee, line 1 of 3.
- 14. Distribution. a. Addressee, line 2.
- 14.b. Number of Final copies: regular.
- Number of Final copies: reproducible.
- 14.a. Addressee, line 3.
- 14.b. Copies. Draft.
- 14.b. Final copies: regular.
- Final copies: reproducible.
- 14. Distribution. a. Addressee, line 1 of 3.
- 14. Distribution. a. Addressee, line 2.
- 14.a. Addressee, line 3.
Route the executed form as not stated or local guidance directs, and retain a duplicate first. Cross-component routing is ordinary for DD forms, which is precisely why a personal copy earns its keep: the receiving office may belong to an organization you have no standing to query about a missing document.
Forms referenced inside this one are located by number alone, and that simplicity is a direct product of Department-level numbering. Because the DD sequence is maintained centrally and not duplicated by service, a number is a complete address: one number, one document, throughout the Defense establishment.
Procedures that touch both Department and service processes will cite forms from both sequences, and the coincidence of numbers between them is exactly that — coincidence. An Army proponent maintains the DA series for the Army; not stated or another Department office maintains the DD series for the whole Department. Two independent registries, two independent numbering runs, no correspondence at any value.
Understanding why editions change explains why checking them is not optional. Revision follows directive reissue, changes in what data is required, and amendments to mandatory notice text — decisions made at Department level and communicated through publication rather than notification. The file you saved does not update itself, so the edition date at download is what you rely on.
The role of this page is narrow and worth stating plainly. It makes a published Defense form available and explains its structure. It does not advise, does not interpret policy for your circumstances, and cannot indicate how any office will treat a completed copy — those judgments rest with the authorities that own the process. Direct such questions to not stated, to the administrative office that services you, or to the authority named in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 1423?
- DD Form 1423, Contract Data Requirements List (4 data items), August 1996
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?